Battling versus catering in Scrolls Encounter

[Karvest]

Because new beta players usually come from live servers and already know the game. Especially the huge impact on tournaments done by SS upgrade techs. And do not make newbie mistakes with taking all of them.
If (when) the new battle stuff came out we would check it and adjust our gameplay for new reality (I have enough GR goods to take all skipped SS techs in case they become valuable).

 

[DeletedUser]

@Karvest, I don't understand how it's a mistake. Is it bad to have blue maps to make battling encounters easier?

 

[DeletedUser]

Now that I know how to upload a file, please explain so I may understand better.

My silk encounter for catering and battling: why is it bad that I researched the tech tree?
Catering:

Battling:

 

[Lovec Krys]

@Soleil Squad size upgrades are tournament killers (especially for cattering).
If you research all non-mandatory squad size upgrades, you will fight with much bigger army both in provinces and tournaments.
Which means, if you try to cater in tournament, you'll pay much higher price than without non-mandatory squad size upgrades. You will also fight with bigger army as well, so unless you have wonders producing troops (they produce troops depending on your squad size), you'll loose your army faster in tournament (same % of losses, but higher absolute losses).

 

[DeletedUser]

Thank you @Lovec Krys for the information

Okay, let me see if I understand what you wrote. If I cater in tournaments versus battling, which I don’t because I’m not even in a fellowship to do tournaments, catering costs are directly affected by squad size. The game assumes you’re going to battle the majority of the encounters thus increases catering costs?

2nd part I don’t quite understand. About battling with a larger army. Using my above picture, help me understand that part on why in my provinces it’s a problem, if that’s all I’m doing at the end of a chapter. I think this is important for me to understand, because why bother having blue maps if it’s a penalty and not a bonus.

 

[Deleted User - 60107]

Let me put it like this: The benefits of World Map encounters are finite - sooner or later you will reach the limit. The benefits of the Tournament encounters are infinite - there's a new tournament each week, so even if you reach a point in the current one where you can't continue - there's always a nerw tournament next week.

A bit more detail:
1) There's a limited number of expansions you can get from the World Map. Once you reach that number you can no longer get any expansion from the World, only from the research tree and the premium expansions.
2) No matter how big your army is sooner or later you will reach a point where you can no longer win on the world map. You will have no choice but to negotiate or wait for a new chapter and new squad size upgrades. And even then you will be able to fight for only a short time (a few dozen encounters at most) before the enemy is once again too strong.

Meanwhile tournaments happen every week. Enemy armies there depend on your squad size, so bigger squads means more losses in absolute numbers. Losing 50 out of 100 units is 50% losses; losing 500 out of 1000 units is also 50% losses. But 500 units are obviously more than 50 units, and thus will cost more time and supplies to replace. Catering in tournaments is also directly linked to your squad size - the biggger your squads - the more you have to pay. Therefor in tournaments it's better to have smaller squads and as a result many players outright skip all optional squad size upgrades.

 

[Karvest]

Higher SS allow you to have cheaper fights in openworld provinces, but increase costs for tournaments (both fighting and catering). If you ignore tournaments - that's ok to have SS maxed. But if at some point you will decide to participate in tournaments (it give a lot of benefits), you will have much more fights/catering in tournaments then in openworld (10-40 openworld provinces per chapter vs 20-150 tournament provinces per week) and you will regret such a decision.

 

[Lovec Krys]

The SS upgrade tech doesn't hurt your fighting in provinces, but greatly hurts your tournament.

In any case, you can always research all skipped squad size upgrades, but not the oposite. Once you research them, you cannot undo it in your current city.

So if you don't care for tournaments now, but decide to start doing them in future, with all non-mandatory squad size upgrades, your tournaments will be like running a marathon with a ball and chain on your legs.

 

[DeletedUser]

Thank you @Karvest, that is why I can’t join a lot of fellowships with point minimums of having to go up stars because I don’t have a lot of provinces opened. My score increases because of the increase from 5 to 6 to 7 to 8 per encounter, but it does get harder to battle from 3 to 6 stars. 2 stars not too much problem but that’s hard to get a lot of points with only 4 provinces. So a player like me, would only go so far in a tournament that I can beat and not try to cater the upper stars?

Thank you for the info too @shadowblack

Next question, is the unwinnable provinces because there are too many provinces opened to get space? In the constructs chapter it’s 360 provinces to open the chapter, is that why going over the 360 provinces it becomes unwinnable? Because then they are green, yellow, orange, and red encounters (are there orange encounters or am I making that up?)

Here’s a picture of my map, 10 of the provinces I have to complete for advanced scouts for chapter 3 are blue the remaining are green. I’m a pretty patient player, and sometimes take breaks why it seems that I’ve been at a chapter a little longer than I should be. But, spending this time to make blue maps only to find out it’s crap to do, is not very nice.

 

[Karvest]

5+ stars in tournaments are usually closed by catering except perfect enemy setups and/or expiring military buildings placed.
And even with 4 opened tournament provinces you can get 1080 points, which is more than our (10chests) FS tourney minimum.

 

[DeletedUser]

@Karvest is that by doing more than 2 stars that you get 1080 points? It's been so long since I've been in a tournament, I don't recall the point system.

 

[Karvest]

1080 = 4 provinces * 6 stars, and it's cheap enough to cater, the only problem - time between rounds, that can be lowered only in constructs chapter.

 

[DeletedUser]

Okay thank you @Karvest then I guess because of how I play, tournaments are kind of off the list for any fs that needs 1000 points. But because of how I play I would want to focus on what I can beat and not cater anything above that. Which is fine, in the past, I ran into running out of everything and/or having too many broken shards. It's probably a better pace for me anyways should I get into tournaments later on. Pretty sure I only have 1 or 2 provinces right now. My itty bitty map. <Why that darn accept 5 trades is so brutal to me.

But i still don't really understand why I would have more losses than someone who hasn't researched the ss updates. Maybe I'll create an fs and see the difference.

 

[SoggyShorts]

But i still don't really understand why I would have more losses than someone who hasn't researched the ss updates. Maybe I'll create an fs and see the difference.

The number of enemies you face in the tournament has a direct relation to your SS.
If you double your squad size, so do they.
This means that instead of losing 20 troops, you'd lose 40.
Or instead of paying 200 planks you pay 400

 

[Lovec Krys]

@Soleil Yes, exactly like Soggy writes. You loose absolutely more troops, but you train the same amount of troops => less tournament fights, less points, relics, KP,... (the only exception are troops generated by wonders - they are proportional to your ss size).

 

[DeletedUser]

Thank you @SoggyShorts and @Lovec Krys this makes as much sense to me as not being able to use all three military buildings at once. I understand, maybe that you get penalized with catering (not really though there shouldn’t be any difference), but with taking time to upgrade your squad size and getting penalized, is bizarre.

The only thing I remember about tournament difficulty (besides doing more stars), it was harder once you opened a new chapter. If you didn’t finish the last research item in a chapter the tournament seemed easier.

One thing I’ve always wondered, but had no way to figure it out is, what happens if you have a lot of provinces completed on your map, but they weren’t blue when you finished them, will those completed provinces turn back to blue once you’ve upgraded your squad size. Or do they remain the color they were when you closed it and does this have any bearing on tournaments and this bizarre configuration they have come up with?

That makes more sense to me, then being punished for taking the time to get all of my research done, and keeping provinces closed until they are blue.

 

[SoggyShorts]

The color of province a on the world map is based on a simple your SS vs theirs formula, so yes, increasing your SS will turn map spots from yellow to green or green to blue.

Your are far better off spending the extra troops/goods to clear yellow ones than to sit and only do blue
The reason is space. By staying " all blue" the map fights will cost a bit less, but by going further you gain so many expansions (and KP and relics) that you can fit more factories/military. On balance The increased costs are nothing compared to the increased production.

 

[DeletedUser]

I agree about having a little more space, fortunately I still have 4 expansions to get before I even get to chapter 3. As far as production/trades go, hasn’t really affected my game yet. Between straight trades and some pretty funny cross trades my inventory looks pretty good.

But what I’m wondering, if by closing out those provinces at yellow or higher, is it somehow affecting tournaments? Why in the world would my squad size have anything to do with negotiating costs? And why would I have more absolute losses with a higher squad size than someone who didn’t research ss and has a smaller squad size? Both make no sense, unless the game is taking into account something else, like finished provinces and what percentage were completed at blue, green, yellow and so forth.

Maybe a person who finished more provinces at yellow for space, have to keep their squad size down and why they have more absolute losses when they decide later to upgrade the ss. Maybe my tournaments are completely different. Idk it’s a mystery.

For now, I’m staying out of tournaments and move on to chapter 3. Maybe I’ll check out tournaments at the end of chapter 3.

 

[Karvest]

<your tournament SS> = <your normal SS> * 0.05 * <tournament province number>.
<tournament enemy SS> = <your tournament SS> * (0.70 + 0.15 * star)
tournament catering cost depends on tournament enemy SS, distribution of this cost between money/supplies/t1/t2/t3/orcs depends on your normal SS.

 

[DeletedUser]

Culture has got to be somewhere in those calculations!